rgast showed such warm interest in all her
concerns, that she felt only that she had acquired a dear friend by the
time the others came in, father and daughter complaining, the one gaily,
the other dolefully, that Cousin Peter had so hunted them that they could
look at nothing in peace. Indeed he was in such a state of restless
misery, that Mrs. Prendergast, in compassion to him, sent her daughter to
dress, called her husband away, and left the place clear for him to say,
in a tone of the deepest commiseration, 'Well, my poor child?'

'O, Mr. Pendy, you have found me a true home. Be the others what they
may, there must be rest in hearing _her_ voice!'

'It is settled, then?'

'Yes. I only hope you have not taken them in. I did my best to let her
know the worst of me, but it would make no impression. Seventy pounds a
year. I hope that is not wicked.'

'O, Cilla, what would your father feel?'

'Come, we won't fight that over again. I thought I had convinced you of
the dignity of labour, and I do feel as if at last I had lit on some one
whom I could allow to do me good.'

She could not console him; he grieved over her changed circumstances with
far more regret than she felt, and though glad for her sake that she
should be with those whom he could trust, yet his connection with her
employers seemed to him undutiful towards his late rector. All that she
saw of them reassured her. The family manners were full of well-bred
good-humour, full of fun, with high intelligence, much real refinement,
and no pretension. The father was the most polished, with the scholarly
courtesy of the dignified clergyman; the mother was the most simple and
caressing; the daughter somewhat uncouth, readily betraying both her
feelings and her cleverness and drollery in the style of the old friend
whom Lucilla was amused to see treated as a youth and almost a
contemporary of her pupil. What chiefly diverted her was the grotesque
aspect of Dr. Prendergast and his daughter. Both were on a large scale,
with immense mouths, noses turned up to display wide nostrils, great gray
eyes, angularly set, yellow hair and eyebrows, red complexions, and big
bones. The Doctor had the advantage of having outgrown the bloom of his
ugliness; his forehead was bald and dignified, his locks softened by
grizzling, and his fine expression and clerical figure would have carried
off all the quaintness of his features if they had not been so comically
caricat